


The Perks and Perils of Advanced Technology

by phoenix_writing



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:15:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21886312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix_writing/pseuds/phoenix_writing
Summary: Merlin can’t figure out why Eggsy has stopped spending time with him.  Cornering him when they’re stuck on a plane together seems like the best chance to figure out what’s going on.  Eggsy/Merlin.
Relationships: Merlin/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 170





	The Perks and Perils of Advanced Technology

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get some fic out into the wide world. This was written in 2016 and is not compliant with the 2nd Kingsman movie.

~*~

Merlin had never had so much trouble getting Eggsy alone before. Normally, the younger man stopped by at least once a day when they were both in HQ at the same time, whether it was to say hello, tell a ribald joke, drop off a destroyed piece of equipment, complain, ask a question, or any of myriad reasons.

Merlin hadn’t realized just how used he’d gotten to the constant interruptions until they tapered off. He’d known he enjoyed the man’s company more than he likely should, but he’d thought it had settled out into a reasonable friendship—or as reasonable as a friendship could be when someone was half your age and you’d saved the world together.

But Eggsy had definitely withdrawn, the visits dropping down until they were only those actually required by the job, and his demeanour had become ... if not quite formal, at least far more formal than Eggsy had treated Merlin in the past.

It was not until the two of them were on one of the jets that Merlin felt reasonably certain he could actually get an answer out of the man, because every other time he’d tried, Eggsy had put him off.

Stuck in a plane together, he at least had a better chance—and he’d got the man onto the plane because while the fact-finding mission had originally been solo, Merlin had commandeered Eggsy at the last minute without giving him the chance to refuse.

Merlin poured them both drinks, which at least had the benefit of getting them seated at the same location at the same time. For some reason, the plane was stocked only with a bottle of twelve-year-old glenlivet. It was Merlin’s favourite, but he was definitely going to have stern words with the technicians when he returned, as it was ludicrous—as well as prohibitively expensive—that it was the only drink on board.

“Is everything all right, Eggsy?”

Eggsy, who had yet to meet his eyes since they’d boarded, looked away from him completely, staring out of the plane’s window.

“I feel like a right fool,” Eggsy muttered. “Why do you keep bringing it up?”

Carefully, Merlin said, “You … don’t seem quite yourself.”

Eggsy stiffened, and then he sighed, some of the tension in his shoulders easing. He turned back to Merlin.

“Some of us don’t have the ability to simply turn our emotions on and off. S’not not being myself, it’s figuring out how to make everything work without….”

He made a face of frustration as his hands gestured expansively and were then thrown up as he failed to express whatever it was that he was trying to express.

Merlin still had no idea what Eggsy was talking about and just kept staring at Eggsy.

Eggsy’s jaw tightened, and he straightened in the comfortable seat.

“Look, you, I don’t know what you want from me! I said it was yer choice and you made yer choice clear enough, so I don’ understand what yer on about now.”

“Have I made a choice?” Merlin asked, thoroughly confused.

Eggsy was frowning. “Can’t see what else you’d call it, ignoring what happened.”

Merlin made a hasty scan of all their recent interactions, finding nothing of note. “Are you saying I ignored something significant?”

For a frozen moment, Eggsy looked as though Merlin had hit him, only then the expression smoothed away as though it had never been, and a wry smirk graced Eggsy’s mouth, though it did not reach his eyes, which were cool and hard.

“Right you are, guv. Weren’t nofing.”

“Eggsy—“

But Eggsy was stalking to the rear of the plane, tension evident in every line of his body, and Merlin knew better than to confront him right now. Eggsy was impulsive, Harry and Merlin had both seen that, but he had a good heart and amazing potential. Merlin would let him calm down and then try to figure out what in blazes the man was talking about.

Clearly, Merlin had missed _something_ , but he couldn’t begin to imagine what. He took a long swallow of scotch. A finger or two, and maybe _both_ of them would be mellow enough that they could sort this out.

~*~

There was a sound like an explosion, and the plane suddenly lurched, throwing Eggsy out of his moody introspection—so harshly, in fact, that he nearly brained himself on the divider between the heads and the rest of the plane.

“What the ever-living fuck?” Eggsy demanded of no one in particular.

He pushed into the main body of the plane, gun in hand.

There was smoke billowing from the cockpit, and Merlin wasn’t moving.

Given how much Eggsy’s fingers trembled, it took him an overly long moment to find Merlin’s carotid and feel the pulse there. Eggsy allowed himself one moment to sag in relief, and then he made himself move.

The explosion had taken out the control panel. The window had cracked but not yet broken all the way through. There was no way that they were flying the plane from the cockpit, but maybe there were other options. He tried to rouse Merlin, but there was no response. There was no sign of injury, and this whole thing was starting to make Eggsy extremely suspicious.

He eyed one of the glasses of whiskey where it had fallen to the floor and spilled the contents of the glass. Eggsy snatched up one of the baggies of pretzels and emptied it, glad that Edwards, one of the techs, had gone on a riff about saving the environment and using reusable packaging for the snacks on the plane.

Merlin had started to point out that the carbon footprint of a private plane vastly outweighed the benefit of snacks that they portioned into baggies themselves rather than buying pre-packaged, but Eggsy had clapped Merlin on the back and cut him off, pointing out that what Merlin meant to say was that every little bit counted, and of course they’d give the reusable bags a try. Merlin had shot him a sardonic look but not actually argued, and Eggsy had thought—

Well, Eggsy had thought things that were stupid, and now was clearly not the time to be thinking about them.

He soaked a couple of napkins with whiskey from the remaining glass and more from the bottle, sealed it in the baggies, and then tucked them into an inner pocket.

He pulled up Merlin’s tablet and accessed the remote controls for the plane. They might not be able to access the control panel, but depending on where the damage was, they might still be able to—

The plane shuddered as another explosion sounded, ominously loud, and Eggsy barely had the chance to dive for Merlin to prevent him from pitching head-first off the seat as the plane began to plummet towards he ground.

Just as he’d tried to access the plane’s controls through Merlin’s tablet.

_Shit._

The plane was clearly going down, and nothing that Eggsy was going to be able to do was going to stop it. In fact, if he tried anything else, he suspected he’d lose the rest of the plane.

He had to get Merlin out of here.

He ripped off the seatbelts from the seats of the plane, grabbed parachutes, ripped out the trackers, and buckled himself into one and Merlin—deadweight, not cooperative at all—into the other. He dragged Merlin to the hatch of the plane, used the seatbelts to awkwardly strap the two of them together—no way was he trusting that he could hold onto the unresponsive man—and forced the door open.

Hugging Merlin to him, carefully cradling the back of his head and neck, he threw them out of the plane.

~*~

Merlin’s head hurt. This was his first thought as he regained consciousness. He soon realised that he had no idea where he was, and as he pieced his spotty memory back together, he realised that the last thing he could recall was sipping scotch on the plane while Eggsy sulked. But he could feel that he wasn’t on the plane anymore, there was no movement around him.

He slitted his eyes open. It was a nondescript room, absent of knickknacks, suggesting a rented space more than a house. There was no one in his immediate field of vision, and finding himself unrestrained, he reached for the knife strapped to his calf.

“Oy, none of that, guv.”

Merlin turned his head too fast, dizziness swirling through him as he tried to sit up, and a moment later, Eggsy was seated on the bed next to him, supporting him and cautioning him against moving.

“Easy does it, bruv. I brought you some water. Drink it slowly, would ya?”

Merlin wanted nothing more than to gulp down that wonderful-looking water, but not only did he know that Eggsy was right, the fact of the matter was that Eggsy, who had been avoiding him for the past month, was now tucked up against his side, keeping him upright. He was holding the glass of water in front of him, and his other hand, which had slipped around behind him, no doubt to offer him more support, was now drawing soothing circles over his skin.

Merlin imagined it was how Eggsy would soothe his sister if she were troubled, but he was totally willing to take it.

So he drank a little of the water, delighted when his mouth stopped feeling as though he’d stuffed it with cotton.

“What happened?” he asked.

“On a scale of one to ten, how functional are you feeling?” Eggsy asked. “We could talk about it later.”

“Or you could tell me exactly what’s going on, lad, before I get annoyed.”

Eggsy let out a sigh, but Merlin had seen the twitch at the corner of his mouth and was pretty sure that he was more amused than he was letting on.

“Plane went down.”

“How?”

“There was an explosion in the cockpit.”

Merlin looked down at himself. He seemed undamaged.

“Why don’t I remember any of it?”

“You were unconscious by that point—I suspect thanks to the scotch.”

Merlin’s eyebrow rose, and Eggsy barked out a laugh.

“Oy, guv, I’m not saying you’re a lush. I think someone drugged the scotch.”

Merlin’s brow lowered, though he scarcely liked this possibility much more. But he couldn’t help but cast a new light on why the plane had been stocked with his favourite drink.

“You think this was deliberate,” he said.

Eggsy nodded tightly. “The second explosion happened when I tried to access the remote controls for the plane with your tablet. That’s when I got us out of there.” He was silent for a beat. “You might want to add that to your training, a tandem jump with an unconscious person. I mean, not quite as exciting as thinking you have no parachute, but practical.”

“You’re still annoyed about that?” Merlin said.

Eggsy laughed. “No, why should I be? If anything, you should be annoyed with me.”

“Not at all,” Merlin assured him. “I was rather pleased that you actually accused me to my face so that I could tell you to stop being a tosser.”

Eggsy laughed again, and this, this was _exactly_ what he wanted.

“What happened, Eggsy?” he asked quietly. “Why haven’t we had this the last month?”

The younger man let out a gusty sigh. “I thought it was _you_ being a tosser, but now I’m not so sure. Can I ask you a weird question?”

“Of course.”

Merlin would like the chance to prove that he was not a tosser, but more than anything at the moment, he simply wanted to _know_. He needed to understand what was going on.

“You remember the 18th of March? You were at HQ and worked for 36 hours without a break because Percival, Lanval, and Gawain were pinned down in Ukraine.”

“Of course I remember.”

Eggsy looked away from Merlin as he asked the question, “And how did the night end?”

“We got them out, thank god, and I fell asleep as they were coming back—I woke up the next morning in my office.”

“Christ,” Eggsy swore as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Okay, so leaving aside what I think we can agree is the unlikely event that you have spontaneously forgotten the rest of the evening, here are your three options: I hit you with an amnesia dart before I left, you hit _yourself_ with an amnesia dart after I left, or someone, unrelated, hit you with an amnesia dart later that night.”

Since two of those three options could be dismissed out of hand, there was only one viable choice.

“Why would a random someone hit me with an amnesia dart?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Eggsy sounded immensely frustrated. “But I don’t know why anyone would try to blow us up, either. I mean, not specifically. I assume there are plenty of people who would like to do the Kingsmen in, probably the both of us in particular.”

“Just me, in particular, I think.”

Eggsy turned to look at him. “Huh?”

“This mission was meant to be solely mine. Your addition was very last minute, and it’s doubtful the type of sabotage you’ve suggested could be managed that quickly. Coupled with the use of the amnesia dart, it paints a very suggestive picture.” He snorted. “I _did_ tell Arthur that I thought I’d be safer with you along, but I hadn’t anticipated it being quite that necessary quite that quickly. Thank you for saving my life, Eggsy.”

“I think that just means that the score is a million to one instead of a million to nought, guv.”

“Ah, but I have yet to throw myself out of a plane to save you,” Merlin pointed out lightly.

“I had to throw myself out of the plane to save _me_ ,” Eggsy deflected.

“And bringing me along was entirely coincidental, I suppose?”

The casualness slipped away as though it had never been, Eggsy’s voice hard and definite now. “It was both of us or neither of us getting off that plane, Merlin.”

And there it was, everything that Eggsy usually hid, the source of the daily visits.

“What happened on the 18th of March? Between us, I mean.”

Eggsy’s eyes flickered. “You know, I’ve spent over a month thinking that you rejected me. It’s really obnoxious that you actually don’t remember.”

“That’s always the problem with taking silence as an answer. There are no guarantees that the question was acknowledged.”

Eggsy sighed again. “When you say something to someone’s face, I think there’s a pretty decent reason to assume that the question has been acknowledged. But I _had_ hoped that even if your answer was no that you’d tell me so, but then I just figured I’d been remarkably stupid about a lot of things.”

“Are you _trying_ to avoid telling me what happened?” Merlin asked.

Eggsy’s lips tipped up. “It’s stupid, innit? If I was willing to do it, I should be willing to say it?”

“I confess that I rather hope you will.”

“I showed up at your office and blew you and then told you that the ball was in your court for the future.”

Merlin blinked, more of his concentration heading south than he wanted to admit.

“I can’t believe I forgot that,” he said rather blankly.

Eggsy laughed softly. “I guess it confirms how well the amnesia darts work?”

Merlin’s lips tipped up. “Well, there is that. So, just to be clear, we had an intimate encounter, you indicated that I should be the one to indicate if I wanted it to go anywhere, and I proceeded to behave as though nothing whatsoever had happened?”

“That’s what it looked like, bruv,” Eggsy confirmed.

That … rather explained the man’s behaviour over the last month, the slow withdrawal because, as Eggsy had suggested, if all Merlin had wanted was not to have a more intimate relationship, he could at least have said so. Leaving Eggsy hanging had damaged every facet of their relationship.

“Whoever removed my memory is going to have to die,” he said, deadpan.

Eggsy let out something that was perilously close to a giggle. “Right you are, guv. That whole attempt to kill us,” he waved a hand, “nufin. The loss of that blow job, though, totally worthy of vengeance.” He waggled his eyebrows in a totally ham moment. “I’m aces with blowjobs, me.”

Merlin straightened suddenly. “Wait a moment. You said this took place in my office?”

Eggsy nodded.

Merlin grinned. "Then we have options after all. I've been experimenting with additional surveillance in my office. Hopefully, it captured what was taken from me."

Eggsy's voice was a little off when he said, "You want to watch me give you a blow job?"

Why yes, yes, he did. For a moment, he'd been concentrating on whatever had occurred that had actually resulted in his memory being erased, but that was scarcely the only thing that had hopefully been captured on the recording. And he very much wanted to see the moments with Eggsy that had been stolen from him.

"Where's my tablet?" he asked.

It was only as Eggsy got up from the bed that Merlin properly realised that they had had that entire conversation on the bed practically cuddled up to one another. He supposed that he was still recovering from whatever had knocked him out, but mostly, it had simply felt so natural that it hadn't occurred to him to question it.

The bags had been tucked on the other side of the bed away from the door. Eggsy pulled out the tablet, which was encased in an RFID-blocking pouch.

Merlin raised an eyebrow.

"I put it in ghost mode," Eggsy said, "but I figure we can't be too safe. With luck, whoever did this thinks that we died."

"Until they examine the wreckage and don't find bodies."

"But if we parachuted out and the parachutes failed, it'll be hard to be sure that we didn't die, even without bodies."

"Why would they think our parachutes would fail?"

"Because they tampered with them, of course."

An eyebrow rose again. "Did you learn to fly when I wasn't looking?"

One corner of Eggsy's lips tipped up. "I wish, guv. I was right suspicious by the time the engine blew in sync with my trying to access the remote controls of the plane. So I strapped on one regular chute and added one emergency chute."

Merlin raised an eyebrow.

"Roxy and I have a deal. She helps me out whenever I need some stupid class thing explained to me without mocking me more than a little, and I make sure that every plane has an emergency parachute on it, one which I've inspected and which no one else knows about."

Merlin hardly knew what to say to this and finally decided that for the moment, he should stick with the point.

"The regular parachute failed."

"Spectacularly. Fortunately, they didn't know about the emergency chute, so that got us down okay."

Eggsy shrugged, like this was a completely normal event for him, and continued.

"Since it seemed like the best way to stay alive at the moment was to make sure that everyone else thought that we were dead, I pulled the trackers from the parachutes, bagged our glasses, phones, and your tablet, and put the tablet in ghost mode so that it hopefully won't give out any signal until you do whatever super ninja tech thing you do so that you can use it without anyone else knowing."

Merlin's lips quirked up.

Eggsy grinned and shrugged at the same time. "We could be bugged in a hundred other ways, of course. I wasn't dumping our clothes and all our gear without a good reason."

"Should be all right," he agreed. "I'll double check for signals. Well done, Eggsy."

"Congratulate me once we've made it through the night and figured out who the hell is doing this."

But he looked a little pleased nonetheless, and Merlin was sure that it was deserved given that he had apparently managed to get them all the way here despite the fact that Merlin had been out for the count.

"Where are we, by the way?" Merlin asked.

"Italy. A little cottage that takes cash and I could sneak you in around back."

For someone who had special flags for impulsiveness, Eggsy really did know how to do the thing right when it was called for.

Merlin settled back against the headboard with the tablet, noting with amused pleasure that Eggsy had even grabbed up a portable keyboard for him.

He set out first to make sure that they were utterly untraceable and then tracked his way back through his own security with even more care than usual, aware that someone might be looking specifically for indications that he was alive and that he was looking for information on that night in particular.

But this was his domain, and he'd be damned if anyone would get the best of him like this.

He lost track of the time until—

"Got it!" he said with hard satisfaction.

These cameras were meant to be undetectable and unjammable and were set to record based on motion, so there was a skip once he moved from the command centre to his office once Percival, Lanval, and Gawain had been extracted, and he was just watching to make sure that they definitely made it home even though there was no reason to think that they wouldn't at this point. The camera began to capture just as it should once Eggsy tapped on the door and came in.

He closed the door behind him, hiding something behind him, which should have been an indication that something unusual was happening.

Of course, maybe it _had_ been an indicator at the time. He had no idea what he'd been thinking, apart from a certainty that he hadn’t been worried that Eggsy was going to do him any harm.

So he'd just looked up tiredly, and Eggsy said—

But the present Eggsy interrupted.

"If you're going to watch that, I'm going to go get supplies."

Merlin raised an eyebrow.

Eggsy looked unexpectedly uncomfortable. "It's like watching porn."

"You're against watching porn?"

Eggsy made a face. “Not normal porn. But I'm not watching porn that I _star in_ with you."

Merlin wasn't quite sure how to parse that sentence, but there wasn't actually a compelling reason to force Eggsy to watch it with him.

Besides, if Eggsy said they needed supplies, then they probably did.

"Take care of yourself."

Eggsy grinned. "I always do, guv." He put a gun on the bed for Merlin. "The rest of the supplies are under the bed."

Merlin nodded.

"Anything you need in particular?" Eggsy asked. "I didn't want to give you nothing when I wasn't sure what you'd been drugged with."

"A wise precaution," Merlin said. "I should have liked to know myself."

"Oh—"

Eggsy rummaged in the bags under the bed and tugged out two baggies which had what looked like wet napkins in them and pointed.

"Whiskey from the glass, whiskey from the bottle." Eggsy made a face. "Possibly slightly contaminated by the pretzel crumbs, but no way was I jumping from a plane with big glass bottles if I didn't need to."

Merlin smiled, pleased and amused by how many thoughts had apparently gone through Eggsy's head as he was trying to save them both from a crashing plane.

Eggsy slipped out the door, locking it carefully behind him.

Merlin turned back to the recording.

Recorded Eggsy said, "Guv, do you know that you've been awake and working for thirty-six hours?"

Merlin had two cameras positioned, one that faced the desk and one away from it, so he had a split screen up showing both himself and Eggsy.

The recorded Merlin looked exhausted. "That would explain why I feel like utter shite."

Eggsy huffed a laugh and came further into the room, holding up what he had been shielding.

"I come bearing gifts."

A plate of sandwiches balanced on top of a travel mug that Merlin assumed was filled with a hot beverage—from the look of him, he didn't care which one at this point.

"Bless you, lad."

Merlin was a little surprised to hear just how heartfelt those words had come out. Did he normally sound like that around Eggsy, or was it just knowing what was in his own head at the time? He didn't actually regularly watch videos of himself interacting with Eggsy, which was possibly an oversight that he needed to correct.

Eggsy crossed the room and set the food down on the desk.

"Why don't you go home, guv? Everyone's safe."

Merlin reached for a sandwich, not even bothering to ask how Eggsy had known that he would enjoy peanut butter and jelly despite the fact that it was a kid's sandwich.

Merlin gestured at the screen where the feed for Percival's glasses and the GPS tracking of their vehicle were set out on the screen.

"They're not home yet."

"But others can take it from here."

Merlin just ate more of his sandwich. Eggsy laughed and flipped up the top of the travel mug so that steam and the enticing scent of a hot cup of milky tea wafted up at him.

"You're a stubborn bastard, did you know that?" Eggsy said, presumably rhetorically.

Merlin didn't bother to respond.

Eggsy slipped round the desk until he was behind Merlin.

"Lean forward," Eggsy instructed.

"What are you doing?"

"Lean forward," Eggsy repeated.

Had Merlin been less sleep-deprived, he would surely have refused or at least questioned Eggsy a little more. But whatever the reason, Merlin eventually simply did as Eggsy had asked, leaning forward in his desk chair so that his back was no longer pressed against it.

This allowed Eggsy to lay his hands on Merlin's shoulders and begin to massage.

If the groan that Merlin gave was any indication, it was highly effective.

"You carry all your tension here, guv," Eggsy murmured. "S'not good for you."

"I'll just have to get you to give me more massages, then, won't I?"

Merlin couldn't see exactly what Eggsy was doing, but he could see the way he was absolutely _melting_ into the man's hands.

Huh. This was not at all the way that he had imagined this encounter would go based on Eggsy's description. They were probably well past the point of questioning whether or not Merlin trusted the other man, but he wondered if Eggsy fully appreciated just how rare this was, how much this wouldn't have happened with someone else. Merlin remembered how exhausted he'd felt when they finally got everyone out, and it would only have gotten worse after he got back to his office and the adrenaline of the rescue wore off.

There were very few people he would allow to see him like this. Eggsy looked intent and fully focussed on Merlin.

Merlin finished the sandwiches and continued to sip the tea—when he wasn't groaning because Eggsy apparently had magic hands, and Merlin truly was annoyed that he'd lost this. He could see it, but he wanted to _feel_ it.

"Lean back."

Merlin did as instructed, and Eggsy slipped around and straddled Merlin's legs.

Merlin rallied enough to eye Eggsy with a weak version of "withering".

"Do you know how many muscles you've got in the front, guv? Can't leave them, can I?"

Eggsy dug his fingers into the front of Merlin's shoulders and repeated the ministrations that he had done in the back—with the added fact of Eggsy now being in his lap, of course.

Merlin could see the desire etched onto his own face now, though he was clearly trying to suppress it. Eggsy appeared to be concentrating on his job, gaze focussed on the muscles that he was relaxing, working Merlin’s shoulders, upper arms, upper chest, neck and jaw.

“How’s that, then?” Eggsy finally asked.

“Lovely,” Merlin said in the sort of wrecked, endorphin-filled voice that you normally only experienced on the other side of an orgasm.

“No tension left?” Eggsy probed.

“Nae.”

“Not _anywhere_?” He was teasing now.

Merlin met Eggsy’s eyes. “Now that you mention it, you do seem to have missed a spot.”

“Can’t have that, can we?”

Eggsy waited for Merlin’s quiet agreement before he slid off Merlin’s lap and onto his knees on the floor, nudging Merlin’s legs apart and putting himself at exactly the right height and location for what the watching Merlin knew was coming.

Eggsy unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, and Merlin hissed as his cock was freed, red and hard and oh-so-eager for Eggsy’s mouth.

And Eggsy, for all he’d dragged this seduction out through the most glorious-looking massage that Merlin had ever seen, was apparently done with teasing because he just buried Merlin’s cock in his throat and sucked him with a great deal of finesse.

Merlin hoped Eggsy considered his level of expertise, the extended foreplay, and the fact that Merlin was punch-drunk exhausted when he remembered Merlin’s staying power—or lack thereof.

The watching Merlin was now painfully hard, of course, and his fingers were gripping the tablet too tightly as he fought to keep himself from dealing with his erection in the most obvious way. Eggsy’s words about watching porn had made him feel like a line needed to be drawn here. Either he was watching porn, or he was doing what he said he was going to do, which was review the events to fill in the blanks in his memory and hopefully catch a potential killer.

But despite Eggsy’s description of what had happened, Merlin truly hadn’t expected the scene to be quite as all-around tempting replayed on this screen as it was. Merlin was pretty sure people would pay good money to see this.

Merlin certainly would, anyway.

He was meant to be watching for research purposes, though, so he gripped his tablet until his knuckles were white and watched himself come down Eggsy’s throat. Eggsy released Merlin’s cock only once it was soft, and then he rose so that he was standing between Merlin’s legs.

He leaned in and pressed a surprisingly soft kiss to Merlin’s lips. He drew back to smile gently at Merlin.

“Ball’s in your court, Merlin. You decide what happens from here.”

He slipped out of the office while Merlin was still splayed in his chair, boneless, utterly spent, and entirely sated by the look on his face.

The watching Merlin was still trying to catch his breath, though he had not let himself come. _Holy shit._ From Eggsy’s description, he’d thought that Eggsy had simply seduced him, had played on the attraction that they’d both mostly ignored. But that—that was something else entirely (in addition to being a beautiful, thoughtful, tender seduction).

The only wonder, really, was why Eggsy had talked to him _at all_ , never mind actually rescued him from a burning airplane.

Only Merlin knew that, too, without needing to ask. Eggsy had been trying to cope, trying not to open up a question that he thought Merlin had closed. Because Merlin had been up for 36 hours straight of harrowing mission, and while Eggsy had given Merlin opportunities to curtail events, it could be argued that Merlin hadn’t been exactly in his right mind. Eggsy had wanted Merlin to make the next choice, to confirm what he wanted when he’d slept, when it was an ordinary day, only Merlin had acted like it hadn’t even been worth acknowledging.

Merlin had been half-kidding before, but whoever was responsible for this mess really _did_ deserve to die. Merlin hadn’t just lost Eggsy’s friendship for a month, he’d lost a month’s worth of what promised to be totally spectacular sex.

With a groan and an adjustment of trousers that were still too tight, Merlin refocused on the feed and tried to pay enough attention that he’d actually notice if something suspicious occurred which would actually explain this whole thing.

~*~

Eggsy dawdled to make absolutely sure that Merlin was finished viewing the feed before he got back. It had never occurred to him that Merlin would be unaware of those events, and Eggsy’s emotions were a total mess as he tried to cope with that realisation, to accept that everything he thought he’d learnt in the last month was a lie but he _still_ didn’t know what Merlin thought of what had happened.

Eggsy hadn’t known that there was a recording. While he was getting pretty used to being viewed thanks to his position as Galahad, that wasn’t quite the same thing as being aware that a totally private sex act was being recorded.

Of course, between the fact that he’d done it at HQ and he’d done it with the Kingsman’s quartermaster, he should perhaps have expected something like this. Only he hadn’t, so now he was dawdling, trying to make sure that he at least didn’t come back while Merlin was watching it, because that would be _worse_.

When he was positive that Merlin couldn’t still be watching, he returned to the little cottage, knocking and confirming that it was him before he opened the door to lessen the chances that he would get shot.

Merlin was still seated on the bed, and Eggsy wondered if he appreciated what that did to Eggsy. He wanted nothing more than to tumble onto the bed with the man and … well, okay, and do not only what was in the video but everything else he could think of too.

Bad timing, that.

“Come look at this,” Merlin said immediately.

Eggsy set the bag down by the door and joined Merlin on the bed, not really surprised but still a little disappointed that what Merlin wanted to show him was nothing related to the two of them having sex.

Merlin pointed to his feed on the tablet.

“I got an alarm here, see.”

Eggsy peered at the screen, squashed close to Merlin because that was the only way to peer at details on a screen that small. (If anyone asked, that was definitely his story.)

“What was it?” He peered closer at the screen. “Someone in data storage, yeah?” And as the Merlin in the feed adjusted the screen to pull up the feed from that area, he squinted. “Is that Sarah from Programming?”

Merlin turned to look at him with surprise.

“How do you know?”

It was Eggsy’s turn to look at Merlin with confusion. “Well, looks like Sarah, dunnit?”

“I thought Sarah or Michelle. It’s not a great angle. She knew where not to look.”

Eggsy shook his head. “Michelle’s hair is longer, and Sarah was working that flippy thing at that point. She once spent an entire lunch break explaining how to get the perfect curl and flip it over her shoulder ‘just so’. Plus, Sarah’s the one sleeping with Roger the tech which would explain how she sabotaged the plane.”

“Why do you know that?”

“S’good policy to have at least cursory knowledge of your team, and I don’t know about you, guv, but my team consists of more than just a table of snotty tossers.”

Merlin shot him a withering look. “You know that’s not what I meant. _I_ don’t sit at that table. But we’ve got a large team.”

“And knowing as many of them as possible helps keep us connected, gets me perks which helps with being the newbie and all.” Eggsy threw Merlin his best saucy wink before sobering and admitting, “Plus it’s your team. I guess I figured knowing your team gets me a little closer to knowing you—or at least being useful if you want me to run a note or something.”

He felt like a bit of an idiot, but given what Merlin had just watched, he knew it was time for cards on the table.

Merlin eyed him. “At this point, I think it’s to our advantage to lay low and let her think she’s won. I’m not going to access any non-private systems in case it tips her off. So I think the real question is whether you got rubbers and slick when you were getting those necessary supplies.”

“I thought you were the best?” Eggsy queried disingenuously.

“Of course I’m the best,” Merlin answered. “That doesn’t mean I should take unnecessary risks—and you’ve not answered my question.”

But Merlin had answered his. Maybe it was safer to wait until later to access more of the Kingsman network. But not doing it now had the very definite advantage of buying them time, as in this moment, what they could be doing with it _right now_. And Merlin asked the question.

“Stuck in a small room with the bloke I fancy and nuffin to do for the night? After said bloke has just watched some porn? ‘Course rubbers and slick were necessary supplies.”

Merlin gave him a stern stare. “I better not find them on any expense report.”

Just like that, Eggsy was laughing—madly, deliriously happy. He climbed off the bed to retrieve the supplies.

“Oh, you can bet your life I’m putting them on the expense report. With a long, detailed explanation of what I used them for.”

And Merlin grinned back, sharp and bright, a smirk that warmed Eggsy to his toes. “I can see it’s going to be a busy night. We better get started, then. Come here.”

That was one order that Eggsy was more than happy to obey.


End file.
